‘Worst cuts in a generation’ on way for education – and even schools face squeeze
‘Worst cuts in a generation’ on way for education – and even schools face squeeze
Posted by 1-randomonium
‘Worst cuts in a generation’ on way for education – and even schools face squeeze
‘Worst cuts in a generation’ on way for education – and even schools face squeeze
Posted by 1-randomonium
47 Comments
(Article)
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The education sector is braced for the “worst financial situation for a generation”, The i Paper has learned, ahead of expected spending cuts in Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement.
Schools will have to find money from internal “efficiencies” to help cover a pay rise for their teachers, while plans for some new state schools will not go ahead to save cash. Some could even find themselves forced to lay off staff.
On Wednesday, the Chancellor is expected to announce a swathe of spending cuts to make sure that the Government sticks to its fiscal rules, which limit borrowing.
Reeves is having to make the cuts because of a forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility which will show that the “fiscal headroom” she set herself against the rules in last year’s Budget has evaporated.
Departments across Whitehall are preparing to tighten their belts, with education no exception.
A Whitehall source told The i Paper that areas of the Department for Education’s budget are likely to be cut.
“There are certainly cuts coming,” they said. “No part of the department has been looking happy.”
Meanwhile, a senior figure in the schools sector said: “Nobody is being positive and everyone is almost expecting the worst.”
The figure added that there was a “general acceptance that we are facing the worst financial situation for a generation”. A union source predicted a “bloodbath”.
Within the DfE budget, schools are expected to receive the greatest protection. A university vice-chancellor told The i Paper: “Folks used to say that whatever name was on the front door [of the DfE], it would always be the ‘Department for Schools’.”
The vice-chancellor said that schools “would always take priority”, meaning that “if savings had to be found, they would be found elsewhere in the departmental budget”.
Universities and post-16 education could be vulnerable if funding is squeezed.
However, even schools will be called upon to make savings as part of this latest round of belt-tightening.
In evidence presented by the DfE to the teacher pay review body at the end of last year, the department said that to cover this September’s pay award for teachers, “most schools will need to supplement the new funding they receive in 2025-26 with efficiencies”.
In a technical note published last week, the DfE estimated that the new money it is giving to schools in 2025-26 would cover a 1.3 per cent pay uplift – less than half of the 2.8 per cent pay rise which the department has recommended.
Savings could include having to make teachers or teaching assistants redundant, employing some staff on temporary contracts or cutting spending on educational resources.
Another area where the Government may look to find savings is by scaling back plans to open new state schools.
In October, the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced that she was pausing plans to open 44 schools that had been approved under the previous government’s “free school” application process.
Phillipson told MPs at the time: “We will look at whether [the schools] meet a need for places in their local area and offer value for taxpayers’ money.”
However, The i Paper understands that an announcement about the fate of the schools is not expected this week.
The DfE has already sought to trim spending by cutting schemes such as a £4m Latin Excellence Programme designed to broaden access to the subject among state school pupils.
The scale of Reeves’ cuts – and what they will mean for the quality of public services – is stirring anxiety within the Labour Party.
A Labour peer said: “The financial pressures are immense on the Government.
“They say it’s not going to be austerity, but it might feel like that.”
Overall, government spending will increase each year, with big rises for defence and the NHS, but other departments have been asked to model cuts of up to 11 per cent.
On Sunday, Reeves confirmed 10,000 civil service jobs will be cut as she looks to reduce the running costs of the Government by 15 per cent.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We recognise the funding pressures those working in education are facing, but the dire fiscal situation we inherited means that tough decisions are needed across the public sector.
“Despite that, this government has made significant additional investment in education across early years, schools, and colleges, alongside steps to stabilise the financial sustainability of universities.
“We will continue to support teachers and education leaders to use funding as efficiently as possible, while continuing to deliver better life chances for children and young people across the country through our Plan for Change.”
So its austerity then. I mean if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
The government seems willing to cut spending on everything except asylum seekers.
I used to be a labour member. Voted them my whole life. Last time round though, I didn’t. Keir starmer is a twat and not a real labour person. They’re becoming more and more Tory as the days go on. Next it’ll be nepotism and theft.
More negative impacts from Rachel Reeves disastrous November budget.
That and an unsustainable welfare bill.
Got to get the plebs desperate and uneducated enough to join the meat grinder..
This is coming at a time when teaching as a profession, in the UK, is a shambles – my inbox has never been more stacked with job opportunities from recruiters trying to fill positions.
Retention and recruitment were already bad when I started my career, they’ve become even worse over the years and now this.
Government: Why can’t we find teachers?! Why won’t anybody do this job that requires experience, multiple degrees, long hours, and constant high stress situations for frankly laughable recompense?!
Also Government: Lol fuck teachers and schools we need to give that money to American Tech companies
Genuinely where did it all go wrong in this country ?
When was the last time we had a government that did positive things that improved our lives, it’s just doom and gloom at every turn and nothing fixes it now we have austerity all over again and some areas have not recovered from the last time this happened.
They are trying to piss every group off. I wonder who it will be next?
Where’s the emergency temporary wealth tax? Where’s shutting down the ridiculous LLP national insurance loophole that the top law firms and consultancy firms use to dodge tax? Where’s the land value tax?
The only reason to cut education is to make sure the next generation is stupid and easily manipulated. Just look at America. Is that what we want?
Impossible. The government has taxed education for at 20%, promising to fund the maintained sector with all of this extra cash. Meanwhile, parents of children in those schools are staying put, just as Labour foresaw. This is greatly enriching the taxman
Clearly these newspapers are printing fake news. Our schools will be experiencing a boon in funding like never before from all this additional taxation poured into their coffers
Like schools have got any spare cash at all. They already have zero cash for maintenance, for example they can’t replace fire doors with inch gaps around them.
Even schools? Schools have taken big hits over the last decade.
In real terms, the income per pupil is less than it was 20 years ago and in post-16 sector it’s even worse. The problem of crumbling concrete is not sorted yet either.
You’d have to be mad, absolutely mad to be a teacher
A university will close down soon
Hearing through uni people that it could be Newcastle
This is what happens when you keep living beyond your means. We’re already spending more on debt interest alone than on our entire education budget. Something has to give and, as always, it’ll be the people least responsible for this mess who pay the price.
How? There’s nothing left to cut.
Source: started my teaching career under blair/brown’s government so have seen it die a death from what it was to the husk it is now.
And just like that Labour alienate all but the handful of rich people and ensure they won’t win an election for the next 14 years again.
Jesus fucking christ they somehow made the tories look kind.
Instead, get the economy moving, generate more resources, by getting back into the EU!
Just to let you know,”A Whitehall source” could be a cleaner or the Prime Minister so I wouldn’t put too much faith into it
But i thought the geniuses of Brexit told us we would be better off EU…
UK – the retirement island
Where we all work to make sure the pensioners get billions more than they ever paid into the state pension system
With a side business in housing millions of illegal immigrants
At at the expense of the working and middle class taxpayers
No wonder the insane right wing is on the rise, it’s like government outs everyone else before the taxpayer. It almost feels deliberate
Next up they will be offering assisted suicide to poor people.
Seems the media are going hard on making everything the new Labour govt is doing wholly negative. It’d be interesting to see how conservative govt would do faced with the same situation. I’m not saying what is happening now doesn’t suck but I’d be curious on what is normal day to day budget planning and what is actually extreme turnarounds (like disbanding NHS England).
Cutting Education is moronic. We live in the knowledge economy and education is key.
But I thought charging me VAT was to help the state schools? No? OK then.
We cannot keep cutting education. Almost literally anywhere else would be better
Still, as long as there’s money for the Triple Lock.
Cut education to fund pensions and care. Nail meet coffin.
Christ increase the basic rate of tax by 1% already AND tax the wealthy an emergency wealth tax to sort this out.
Lol how is that private schools tax working out for you Keith?
I’m getting out of education this year. Not worth it I’ve been in FE for the last ten years and we’ve not really had any increase in funding for 15 years. We got a 300 million one of last year but that doesn’t even touch the sides. With inflation we’ve had a 35% pay cut in real terms since I started.
Began in a pretty safe middle class position, now I could do about the same if I worked at Lidl.
“vote for us, we’ll make your life more miserable” is not a selling point for Labour
Maybe we’re just doomed to witness a decline in standards of living for as long as the rich continue to swell their coffees off our society.
This is what happens when you have a country brainwashed into thinking that every single penny gained in tax must be thrown at the NHS, which must never, ever have to make any difficult choices , while we cut every other departments spending to keep it going
When the fuck will we stop worshipping that giant money pit like a pseudo – deity?
Interesting.
What I find particularly interesting is how the effects of the geopolitical situation is impacting on national politics to bring about the final effect of austerity – long term, permanent austerity. Doesn’t matter if it’s DOGE in the States or what this Labour government is doing here, it’s still cuts, cuts, austerity, job cuts and more cuts. More efficiency, less waste, make do with less, over and over again.
So what are you going to do?
I mean, do you keep your mouth shut, do your job, keep your head down, and just hope that you’re not going to be one of those who are affected by all this?
This isn’t any way to live.
Furthermore this is authoritarianism. It’s a power trip. It’s designed to keep you in your place, on your toes, constantly finding reasons to justify your existence and your role in society. It’s neofeudalism.
This is not a democracy. This is at best an oligarchy, at worst a fuckwitocacy – a system run and governed by fuckwits. A tad worse than a kakistocracy. This depends of course if we’re shadowing what the Trump administration is doing in the States right now.
Additionally I don’t believe this is a case of Rachel Reeves somehow discovering another shortfall in the data spreadsheet and thinking “Oh shit. I didn’t notice that.” No. This is all planned, premeditated, and just as the Tories did, Labour are following their instructions.
At some point people are just going to have to accept, if they haven’t already, that economic growth as the stated primary objective of a government – a mission statement as it were – has got nothing to do with them – not now, not at any point in the future.
The oligarchs and wealthy just aren’t willing to share their wealth for the benefit of anyone but themselves outside of a few philanthropists.
The Tories and Farage did a real number on the country.
Why. Why the fuck does education always get fucked. It’s the one thing that we should religiously invest in.
Austerity with a lick of red paint, what the fuck is there left to cut? Everything is already shaved thin over the past 14 years.
All the complaining. All while refusing to see the nation is broke and those that can have been taxed to the point of enough is enough.
We all knew labour would have a shit job to figure this mess out.
Austerity and then austerity to fix the mess caused by austerity and then austerity to fix the mess caused by the austerity that was supposed to fix the mess and then austerity…
But…. but we gotta show those nasty Americans somehow and siphon money to Ukraine!
Ukraine is more important than our kids and their education.
The problem really is that Labour, as it now is, was never going to be willing to do what needed to be done.
They came into power in July and leisurely was the word of the day. This is because they are not inclined to have the state do anything, they ‘believe’ in the private sector like all those right-wingers before them.
They tried to mislead the public by talk of GB Energy and the like but they were NOT in any way that type of Labour. They are exactly like the Thatcher years.
And the material consequence of this will be that the quality of human we unleash into society is going to drop off a cliff.
People being failed and pushed into poverty at every turn. Genuinely think the UK will see inequality like Brazil over the coming years, with favelas alongside fancy new builds
So let’s see… the government is gearing up to reduce the legal rights of children with SEND, claiming they’re going to improve the SEND system by improving mainstream inclusion and early non-statutory intervention. Meanwhile, schools are going to be financially worse off than ever.
What could possibly go wrong? I thought they wanted young people to work?
Every single thing they’re saying massively contradicts what they are doing.
Austerity is the LAST thing our economy needs. This will slow the economy down even further.
You have to spend money to make money. This is a false economy, like buying cheap washing up liquid that does about four tubs worth.